Bankruptcies increase 11.9 percent

jaredwiener 181 points 113 comments April 28, 2026
www.uscourts.gov · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (9 comments)

richardwhiuk

Steadily increasing for five years

nippoo

I can't find the original source, but I remember reading a study showing that this rise was closely correlated to states which had legalised or loosened laws on gambling!

throwaway27448

Are we the first state to openly care more about our rich than the people who live here?

stevefan1999

And no wonder why the job market is so booming right now because there are less companies alive and more people got laid off, thus shrinking demand and increasing supply in workforce recruiting. We all have to thank Trump and Anthropic/OpenAI/blah-blah-blah for this win-win situation. I hope there are jobs for company liquidators though it is usually the job of a junior solicitor/lawyer I reckon, as they will certainly have more demands amid this bankruptcy wave

cdrnsf

There's no reason to believe this will reverse or improve under the current administration. Grifting is celebrated and policy is decided by and for the wealthy. Meanwhile, tech leaders are promising even more job losses spurred by AI.

htx80nerd

Friendly reminder the US Gov printed ~4 trillion dollars during the Covid years.

altcognito

Was higher prior to Covid, we are just reverting to the prior situation. https://www.debt.org/bankruptcy/statistics/

ilamont

I can't speak for bankruptcy filings, but I've sat through small claims sessions on a few occasions and probably half are for credit card debt. Most of the time the defendant doesn't show and assuming the bank wins, damages can be trebled in my state. And: Credit card rates are way, way up compared to just a few years ago. Earlier this year WSJ reported average APRs in the US were over 24% ( https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-credit-card-rate-cap... ). Most people do not read the fine print on their credit card applications, or compare them to what rates used to be like.

emsign

AI is sucking money out of other sectors. Unfortunately many of which a degrow means a decrease in living standards (unless you can afford the premium). I think they call it K shaped economy. It's bad right now.

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